Reynolds' Pazz & Jopp essay

[noel emits]

It's not metaphorical.

 

[nomadologist]

oh man, leave the thread for a few hours, and look what happens. I must admit, when this sort of stuff comes up, I'm totally in over my head, not having read much "theory" etc.

But am I alone in feeling the slightest bit queasy at how real mental illnesses are used as sources for metaphors for ways that non-mentally ill people can different (dis/)engage with consumerism and capitalism? (i.e. sometimes this way of talking sits uneasily. but go on, please!)

i'm schizo-Affective, and i don't mind--it's not a metaphor, it's used in a literal sense.

 

[Guybrush]

But she is talking specifically about them AS CONSUMERS... and saying that whether you are consuming Razorlight or Iannis Xenakis, you are engaged in precisely the same system, and that at some level what you are interested in is manipulating a sense of self identity through the purchasing of products (the fundamental methodology of marketing in late consumer capitalism)... hence the pejorative aspects of hipsterism must be dispensed with, (although perhaps one could say that they show an excess of this kind of behaviour, which is seen by the majority as somehow unseemly in its extent...)

Although she was thinking of them as consumers in this particular passage, I got the impression that her definition of a ‘hipster’ rested on the notion of them as consumers: that they are defined as a consumer group more than anything else. I thought (and think) that this is too simplistic a reasoning. I’m sure that you could identify some general consumtion patterns within the loosely defined group of ‘body-builders’, say, indeed many companies certainly have. I would argue, however, that that does not mean that they are characterised by their consumption, rather they are characterised by their bodily aspirations. I bring this example up to illustrate that groups of people are not solely defined by how they consume.

Regarding the consumtion thing, ‘we are all birds of a feather’, yadayada: I would dissuade people from applying their own country’s state of affairs to others’: the differences are much greater than you think, even though we all live in capitalistic states. Living in a welfare-state where industrious file-sharing is considered a moral prerogative—indeed, a socialistic imperative—is very different to living in a certain rogue state (that dare not be spoken of... ).

 

[nomadologist]

Guybrush, you listen to more American R&B than most Americans do! How do aspirations define you in a marketplace? They don't. What you buy does!

And Americans STARTED file-sharing on the level you see it happening now, and we take part it in as much as anyone. It's a few companies here that litigate around intellectual property laws, not your average person here in the States.

 

[nomadologist]

And what one set of aspirations do hipsters share that would make them fit into the body builder analogy? There are hipsters who are into all different sorts of things. There's no one group of "hipsters" who all buy the same thing, do the same things, live in the same place. "Hipster" as a sociological type is nowhere near as simple as "body builder."

 

[shudder]

b/c "hipster" as he already established, is used in a million ways, which "body-builder" simply is not. there really is no one type "hipster" like there is "body builder".

 

[nomadologist]

sorry, shudder. i'm not sure what you mean by that. could you say it again: are you agreeing with guybrush?

 

[shudder]

sorry. no, I was pretty much restating what you just said. badly.

 

[nomadologist]

gotcha, i'm getting confused by all the thread jumping i'm doing. friday night, at last.

keep the conversation steered away from hipsters while i'm gone. heh

 

[noel emits]

Just cos I really like this and it is Friday night:

Sometimes dubstep IS metal: http://www.myspace.com/corgrimey

Onslaught rules.

 

[zhao]

schezopherenia certainly is a good description/metaphor for default 20th C. experience - constant confusion of illusion and reality, mass hallucination, etc. (maybe autism is appropriate for the 21st)

what capitalism does is filter everything through the lense of consumption, so that all creativity, empathy, communication, becomes inextricably tied to the dynamic of the market, and experience of all art is reduced to the display of empty sets of signifiers.

at the same time as the information age gives us unprecidented quantities, perhaps other layers and levels are being erased, lost, forgotten. 1. there is a compression of experience, and 2. there is an alienation, which translates to a loss of experiential information.

Indian classical ragas last for typically 3-6 hours. an "afternoon raga" would last from noon to sun-set: music created and experienced in real time. in the 1920s, when the longest recording capacity was 15 minutes, musicians would cut their compositions down to this duration.

which free jazz musician said that all recorded music is "canned music"?

again, taking indian classical as example: traditionally, a dancer works with only one single tabla player, for decades, before a psychic connection is established, before their art reaches heights of refinement where a myriad of nuances can unfold. and neither of them will ever work with a different dancer/tabla player. this is but one example of the kind of experiential information which is lost.

as I sit alone in my studio downloading thousands of albums from all cultures of the world, I can not help but think about the intimate connection that the makers of this music must feel toward his/her art, how it is a lifetime of devotion, how meaning is acrued over time, and how, by comparison, I am hopelessly aliented, cut off, and unable to eat and digest the real fruit from these trees.

the information age gives at the same time as it takes away. this is my thesis. I had a conversation with some friends the other day who absolutely disagree. what do y'all think?

 

[zhao]

is that really the entire book? the Vision Machine? thanks if it is because years ago I read 2/3 of it and misplaced it before I could finish. cheers

 

[noel emits]

experience of all art is reduced to the display of empty sets of signifiers.

...

as I sit alone in my studio downloading thousands of albums from all cultures of the world, I can not help but think about the intimate connection that the makers of this music must feel toward his/her art, how it is a lifetime of devotion, how meaning is acrued over time, and how, by comparison, I am hopelessly aliented, cut off, and unable to eat and digest the real fruit from these trees.

Interesting how psychedelic drugs are a great way to bypass these problems by allowing more direct experiential access and increased ability to grok unfamiliar cultural signals. Or is that just my experience?

 

[zhao]

LSD (as I work on a new design direction at work which is all "peter max") has often been falsely thought of as an easy road to enlightenment. a pill for instant nirvana.

but really, as much of a fan as I am, psychedelic drugs are not much more than a derangement of the senses, which, taken the right way, can dissolve preconceptions and open minds, and maybe allow one to catch a few glimpses the inherent sublime wonders of the universe.

but if you think you can access the knowledge of a yogi or feel the understanding of a master oud player by dropping a liquid in your eye, you've got another thing coming.

 

[noel emits]

what capitalism does is filter everything through the lense of consumption, so that all creativity, empathy, communication, becomes inextricably tied to the dynamic of the market, and experience of all art is reduced to the display of empty sets of signifiers.

I'm still not sure I buy this anyway

One thing about that trinity of underground musics (noise, dubstep, metal) is that they are very experiential, rather than symbolic.

 

[noel emits]

but if you think you can access the knowledge of a yogi or feel the understanding of a master oud player by dropping a liquid in your eye, you've got another thing coming.

Why? Because the 'mysteries of the East' are so inaccessible and er, mysterious?

I never said LSD was an easy road to enlightenment. Just to cleanse the doors of perception a little. I don't think it's simply derangement, although shifted perspectives can be useful in themselves.

 

[gek-opel]

I have known a number of people with schizophrenia- according to them its not really redolent of LSD or mescaline, rather it resembles the extreme edges of the paranoid stages of cocaine/amphetamine use, which would accord with my experiences of the latter... (ie- psychosis no?) this would also accord with recollections of my mother's thesis on gender and schizophrenia, (deconstructionist analysis of conversations between patients and case workers/psychiatrists requiring endless re-winding of audiotape to capture the words and inflections of those speaking... some pretty disturbing stuff there, and again highly reminiscent of a few psychosis experiences in the past...) although of course Schizophrenia is a diagnostic dumping ground for all the mental disorders which refuse to fit elsewhere...

Psychedelic drugs to my mind merely imply a nightmarish level of hyper-awareness of social dynamics- a physicalisation of power structures embedded inside language- and tortuous transcendental horror-shows of mass murder and coruscating self-assassination.

 

[noel emits]

Psychedelic drugs to my mind merely imply a nightmarish level of hyper-awareness of social dynamics and tortuous transcendental horror-shows of mass murder and coruscating self-assassination.

Holy shit Mr. Opel!

Remind me to avoid your dealer.

 

[noel emits]

Sorry, I just meant to say that there really is more to psychedelics than psychotomimesis.

What did you take, The Ladder?

 

[noel emits]

And by that token I would totally agree that although there might at times be some similarities, psychedelics are not comparable to mental illness, for many reasons and in many ways. The drugs themselves also differ greatly of course.